News24 reports that ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) has said that capacity building programmes for unemployed women on how to produce sanitary pads and run a business to supply government-issued sanitary pads should be offered to primary and high school pupils.  

"Government can later source the sanitary towels from women-owned businesses.  There are many things like free stationary, free condoms, et al that government is providing but the biggest suppliers of those items remain male-owned businesses, in particular white.  Radical socio-economic transformation must be in theory and in practice in all sectors," secretary general Meokgo Matuba said in a statement.  The ANCWL’s comments come after Minister of Women in the Presidency, Bathabile Dlamini, last week reportedly told Parliament's Multiparty Women's Caucus that pupils would soon receive free pads.   Matuba also said the women’s league would mobilise its members, supporters and society in general to embark on a campaign for Treasury to add sanitary towels onto the list of items zero-rated in respect of value-added tax (VAT).

• Read this report by Tammy Petersen in full at News24

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